Fighting cancer in China

A unique partnership with a hospital in China has yielded astonishing results in the field of diagnostics. This, in a country whose health problems are rising all the time and where many specialists are unable to cope with increased workloads.

The huge West China Hospital in the country's fourth largest city, Chengdu, plays host to a ground-breaking collaboration between doctors and engineers from Philips. China accounts for half of all new cases of liver cancer in Asia, but old cancer diagnostic technologies involved complex and time-consuming invasive procedures that presented risk to the patient and meant their recovery times were lengthened.

Having joined forces (with Philips), we're bridging the gap to match technology with actual clinical need. Today, the focus is on liver cancer, but I hope to expand the collaboration to other areas."

Dr. Yan Luo

Director of the Ultrasound Department, West China Hospital

The Philips ElastPQ is a non-invasive machine using state of the art ultrasound technology. It provides medics with valuable data that can assist in the overall diagnosis of liver cancer – both at a fraction of the cost and at greater speed. However, it’s not simply the innovation, the presence of Philips engineers on site facilitates ongoing research and development in a hospital setting. This continuous innovation is an inspiring medical partnership where doctors and engineers join forces to match technology with actual clinical need. It's leading to faster and more accurate cancer diagnosis – with all the obvious benefits that entails for patients.

27%

of the world's cancer deaths occur in China. In 2012, this accounted for 3.07 million newly diagnosed cancer cases. The country also registered the world's most new liver, esophogus, stomach and lung cases.

Citation: World Cancer report 2014, IARC

Over 14 million new cancer cases occurred globally in 2012?

True. An estimated 14.1 million new cancer cases occurred in 2012. According to the WHO, if recent trends in major cancers are seen globally in the future, the burden of cancer will increase to 23.6 million new cases each year by 2030. Citation: World Health Organization / Cancer Research UK: World cancer factsheet